In how many ways can you seat 8 students in a row so that Tom and John never sit together? EXPLAIN YOUR THINKING BELOW. Solution total ways in which 8 students can sit in a row = 8! let us take the number of ways in which Tom and John sit next to each other i.e assuming they are always together so we have 7 students ( 6 others & 1 Tom and John) so total outcomes = 7! so number of ways = 8! - 7! = 35280.